


Crane: Lord of Fear

by wouldyouliketoseemymask



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Gen, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 12:56:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18469417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wouldyouliketoseemymask/pseuds/wouldyouliketoseemymask
Summary: Ten stories dedicated to Jonathan Crane, featuring versions of the character ranging from his psychologically-terrifying presence in the Nolanverse, his fearsome Georgian roots in the pages of "Scarecrow: Year One", and his skillful mastering of chaos in the DCAU.





	1. A Chair in Hell

**Author's Note:**

> I published my very first Scarecrow story on Halloween 2010, and in the years since I have gone on to write over thirty more. Some were experimental, some have needed alterations, and some I am more fond of than others, but at their core they all share a single unifying trait—I had great fun writing each one. Over the course of a few months I have revisited some of my oldest stories and edited them to reflect a higher level of quality than what I possessed when I first began writing; the plots have remained the same (for the most part), but now contain much-needed structural improvements, richer and more expansive imagery, and what I hope is an enhanced experience for anyone who may read them. Because my publishings are rather disorganized and some contain significant modifications, I have decided to create this collection, titled "Crane: Lord of Fear". It features ten of my favorite stories, written at varying points over the past several years and spread across different universes, from the "Dark Knight" trilogy films to "Scarecrow: Year One" to the DCAU. I also took inspiration from other comics like "Masters of Fear" when creating a background for Nolanverse Crane, since this version of the character lacks a canon origin, as well as classic horror films and literature.
> 
> Please be aware that my writing is dark and may contain subject matter you find disturbing. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy my stories!

**A CHAIR IN HELL**

NOLANVERSE

* * *

_Scarecrow rehearses a fearsome performance._

* * *

I am standing in the basement of Arkham Asylum. I am not alone in the mold and the darkness: there is a man sitting before me, his inmate jumpsuit a burst of bright orange in the surrounding grime and his still body bound to a chair by medical restraints. His eyes are dim and his expression is blank; in the crook of his right arm there is a slight blossom of blood where a needle has punctured the thin skin and flooded his veins with the newest version of the chemical compound that I have been tirelessly perfecting into the late night hours, when the other doctors have gone home and I am free to transport patients into the asylum basement without arousing any unwanted suspicion.

I have decided to call it "fear toxin"—simplistic, admittedly, but highly accurate all the same. Inmate #908143, a man incarcerated for reasons that I am uncertain of and do not care to know, is on the verge of illustrating why my compound is more than deserving of its blunt title.

For a few seconds there is only silence as I stand motionless, holding my breath in anticipation as I wait for his reaction to begin. I am not tense, nor am I nervous, for I already know what is about to happen; I have reveled in this particular glory many times. Tonight is merely yet another rehearsal for an upcoming performance that I will one day share with Gotham City and all those that reside beneath her putrid sky—but not until I am ready.

I watch as the man slowly raises his head to face me. His eyes widen to drink in a horror that I cannot see and as his jaw drops an agonized scream erupts from his open mouth, tearing its way free through his throat and echoing about shrilly in the barren halls of the basement.

_Yes._

The abrasive texture of the burlap caresses my face lovingly as I smile beneath my mask. I watch the man flail helplessly against the chair restraints, stomping his feet onto the stone floor with such violence that I wonder if he will become injured and how I will explain it away to the nursing staff. His face is reddened to an extraordinary shade of crimson, the bulged veins in his neck threatening to burst through his skin as he screams and sobs fat tears that slide hotly down his cheeks, and as I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with the basement's stale air I immerse myself in his fear.

I do not feel confined inside my mask even when beads of perspiration begin to drip from my forehead and my hair dampens from sweat; the fabric is as much a part of me as my flesh and my blood and my bones, and to remove it during a session would be akin to amputation. I am everything that I have ever wanted to be when I wear my mask. I am immaculate, pure, indestructible, godlike. I am a vessel for every terrible fear that has sent a shudder down the spine of mankind throughout the entire history of the world's existence. I am  _complete_.

I bend at the waist and lean forward until my burlap is inches from the man's face, and I look into eyes that are bloodshot and tortured from the chemical visions that I have made them suffer.

"Is something wrong?" I ask in a voice like silk. "You look unwell."

The man presses himself against the back of the chair in a pitiable attempt to get as far away from me as his bound state will permit. He has dug his teeth into his bottom lip and blood blooms across his mouth before trickling down his chin; he drags his hands frantically along the arms of the chairs, clawing into the wood like a trapped, wounded animal, and I know that if he continues this futile act of desperation his fingernails will soon begin to crack open and expose the soft pink flesh beneath.

But I have seen this all before. I need more.

" _ **Speak!"**_

The sound of his scream meshes with my roar, filling the cell with a battling symphony of fear and anger. My patient thrashes about in the deepest throes of terror, wailing and weeping and wriggling, until he is depleted to the point of exhaustion and throws back his head to let out a final pained howl of defeat before sinking into the chair and the mercy of unconsciousness. He never once uttered a single word.

Still, I smile.

I will do this again tomorrow night. And the next night. And the night after that.

Every night, I rehearse to prepare for my big show, my masterpiece, my fearsome opus; I will not unveil it to Gotham until I am satisfied that it is perfect. Every night I bring a patient into the basement, seat them in the spectator's chair, flood their bodies with toxin and grant them the privilege of watching me perform their fears. They are my audience and the asylum is my stage. Their screams are my applause, their wretched cries my praise, and when their throats are raw and they collapse into an exhausted heap I bow and soak up their adoration.

Every night, it is the same.

Every night, it is beautiful.

* * *

_"Fear is our deepest and strongest emotion, and the one which best lends itself to the creation of nature-defying illusions."_

—H. P. Lovecraft


	2. Of Duality and Fear

**OF DUALITY AND FEAR**

COMICVERSE

* * *

_Scarecrow and Two-Face walk into a bar._

* * *

Crane was never one to indulge in vices, especially those that affected his brain chemistry—he much preferred to explore the mind than to numb it—but on occasion he would allow Gotham City's former DA to drag him to a hole-in-the-wall bar for a drink. He found the seedy atmosphere distasteful and the clientele vulgar, but more often than not these little ventures resulted in transactions that involved the fattening of his wallet and an expanding list of useful connections. And so he tolerated the smoky stench and profane spitting—but not for a second longer than necessary.

He wasn't exactly sure  _why_  Two-Face desired his companionship, although Crane suspected that what little remained of Harvey's humanity became lonely at times. Every one of their meetings entailed a different performance from Dent, from the amount of drinks he'd consume to the number of cigars he'd smoke to the hair color of the women that would inevitably adorn each arm. The only constant in Dent's life was his coin; Crane would watch, mystified, as Dent would flip the coin through the air over and over again on a seemingly endless loop, pausing only to slap it against the back of his scarred hand when it came time to make a decision. A smooth face meant a calm, almost cordial Dent, while the reveal of a scratched surface was enough to make Crane's stomach clench with anxiety.

Not that Crane would ever admit to that, of course. Not in a million years.

Sometimes he would entertain the notion of slipping a few drops of fear toxin into Dent's drink; he imagined Two-Face ripping himself apart in terror, his dual personalities at war with each other even as they plunged deep into a chemical horror. He'd almost gone through with it once, on a night when the coin tosses had resulted in a very drunk Dent. He had even gone so far as to uncork a small vial underneath the table and offer to buy Dent another drink—a coin toss worked in his favor, and in the darkness of the bar his hand had hovered over Dent's glass.

Ultimately he decided against it, and placed the vial back into his pocket. Dent was currently more useful to him as an ally than an enemy, and poisoning him would only serve to irreparably destroy their partnership. He handed Dent his drink, and Dent raised the glass to indicate a toast.

_Soon_ , Crane promised himself, and smiled as their glasses clinked together.


	3. How a Bad Seed Grows

**HOW A BAD SEED GROWS**

COMICVERSE

* * *

_A young boy begins the path to villainy._

* * *

October in Arlen remained as oppressively hot as the summer months before it. A merciless Georgia sun reigned brightly in the fall sky, bathing the small rural town below in wave after wave of endless, smothering heat.

In the schoolyard children gathered beneath a great tree to to indulge in what feeble cool its shade provided before they began their sweltering journey home, some by foot along the town's dirt paths and rickety fences as the sun bore down menacingly upon them and some by cramming themselves shoulder-to-shoulder into the boiling, tin-like confines of the school's few buses. Inside Arlen's spindly little church the scorching faithful clasped together their slick palms in prayer as beads of perspiration trickled down their foreheads to land on the worn pages of their generations-old bibles, firmly convinced that their present suffering made them all the more pious. In the fields working men with aching backs and clots of chewing tobacco tucked in their bottom lip labored among dirt and cornstalks and biting flies, their bare arms and necks burned to the angry, blistered shade of red that signified day after day of toil and sweat and sometimes blood, with no end in sight. Not a soul in Arlen—whether devout or dissenter, fortunate or plagued with woe, prosperous or resolved to the cycle of poverty—was spared from the heat's imminent gaze, from the morning when the sun had risen to bestow its fever upon them to the night hours when the air was at its thickest and the crickets began their chorus.

But on a wretched stretch of land located on the outskirts of town, home to a decaying old mansion and a long-dead legacy, there lived a young boy whose greatest misery was wrought not by the sun, but by the merciless hands of another.

"So did you think about it, Granny?"

As soon as the question had leapt from his lips Jonathan Crane immediately wished he could stuff it back into his mouth and gulp down every earnest, regretful,  _stupid_  word and pretend they had never been spoken at all. He felt his stomach begin to contort itself into the painfully-familiar knots of sickening dread, just as it always did whenever he knew he would soon be facing punishment, and with hands far too calloused for a boy his age Crane gripped the garden hoe tightly to brace himself for the withered crone's venom.

There would be consequences. There always was.

"What'd you just say, boy?"

Heart pounding thunderously, Crane turned to face his great-grandmother with the trepidation of a condemned man approaching the gallows. Mary Keeny took a sip from the cool glass of iced tea clutched in her time-gnarled hand, her wilted lips crinkling around the rim like aged parchment, and as he watched her drink Crane felt a pang of thirst in his own throat, bone-dry from the hours spent toiling away in the Keeny Manor garden. An umbrella provided her with further comfort by shielding her from the sun's direct blaze as she sat haughtily in a wooden chair to observe his labor with the predatory glare of a vulture, yet still she could not evade the weather entirely; beads of sweat blossomed across her creased forehead beneath the wide brim of her hat, and Crane was certain the puritanical black dress shrouding her gaunt frame from neck to stocking-clad knee was made all the more suffocating by the heat. In her lap sat the family Bible, passed down from righteous Keeny to righteous Keeny, until the tradition had ended when Mary's offspring—a vain woman named Marion—eschewed religious devotion in favor of pursuing a more glamorous existence than rustic Arlen could provide; the familial disappointment had only continued when young Karen Keeny, Marion's own daughter, surreptitiously gave birth to a pallid, emaciated infant, conceived out of wedlock and unwanted. It was Granny Keeny who gave the child his name.

Jonathan.

In his great-grandmother's eyes Crane had been forged from sin, a living embodiment of all that Granny Keeny found repulsive and profane, and he was reminded of it frequently.  _So like your mother_ , she would seethe with vehemence and disgust,  _aren't you? **Aren't you?!**_

He would always respond by nodding solemnly, as if ashamed on Karen's behalf, but inside Crane would ask himself the same question:  _was_  he like his mother? Did she like the same books as him, if she even liked books at all? Did she walk the same path home, or did she take a shortcut through the cornfields, wide stalk leaves caressing her shoulders and face as she ran through the green abyss and grinned and laughed and was happy (or at least he liked to  _imagine_  her as happy, far happier than Crane had ever been or likely ever would be)? Did she still look the same way she did in the one photo Granny Keeny had allowed him to see of her, with a long stream of untamed curls spilling down her back and round gray eyes and a half-smile that was the most beautiful thing—the  _only_ beautiful thing—he'd ever seen in the small, monstrous, uglyworld he was imprisoned within, or had she somehow managed to become even more stunning? Had she sat in the same chair as him at the supper table, clanking the same spoon against the same bowl? Had she slept in the same bed, tossing and turning fitfully beneath the same blankets? Had she lied awake at night, burning with the same hatred for the same woman, and wished that she was anywhere else but there, anyone else but herself?

Was she even still alive?

_Did she ever think of him at all?_

"I ask you again: what did you just say,  _boy_?" Granny Keeny demanded; although she often proclaimed herself to be more virtuous than the damned souls that resided outside of the manor grounds, with steadfast faith to rival that of an apostle, Crane had never known his great-grandmother to posses anything resembling patience.

He cast his eyes down to the rows of tilled soil at his feet. Dimly he realized that his gardening shoes had deteriorated to such a dire state of ruination that the tip had begun to separate from the left sole, and his toes—already cramped from having outgrown the shoes' confines last year—were in danger of jutting free to expose his frayed white socks. They had once belonged to a man who died long ago in the manor's fruit cellar, whose final thoughts were of failure and the smell of rotten apples and the metallic taste of the gun barrel in his mouth, retrieved by Granny Keeny from a dust-caked closet and given to Crane without ceremony or warmth. They were not a gift, but a blunt symbol of the tasks expected of him, and when they inevitably crumbled beyond repair they would not be replaced.

"I was just wondering if you gave any more consideration to Halloween, that's all," Crane mumbled clumsily. "I know you said yesterday that we didn't—that we don't—have the money for a costume, and how God doesn't want us to go trick-or-treating anyway and everyone in town is headed straight to Hell for celebrating the Devil's holiday, but I thought maybe if I prayed  _really_  hard and swore to be  _really_  good that you'd change your..."

His voiced trailed off. There was nothing he could say that would save him from what he knew awaited him in the chapel; already he could smell the pungent odor of the herb and rodent blood concoction, feel the tattered ceremonial suit hanging loosely from his trembling limbs, sense the stare of the crows as their beady eyes glimmered in the darkness, hear their hellish cry ringing in his ears just before they swooped down to—

"Look up at me, Jonathan.  _Now._ "

Crane obeyed immediately, not wanting to make his impending fate even more terrible. Once she had locked him in the aviary for three consecutive days after finding  _The Turn of the Screw_  peeking out from his unclasped book bag; when he returned to school speckled with peck marks, his unwashed hair matted and his clothes reeking of the ordeal and his stomach roaring with hunger, the other children had snickered at him. But it was the teachers that made Crane feel the most humiliated and hopeless: as he sat hunched shakily over his desk in their classrooms he would feel their gaze lingering on his frail, cowering frame, an uncomfortable union of pity and reluctance flickering in their eyes, and lift his weary head just in time to see them quickly look away and pretend not to notice him.

They never said a word. It was simpler that way.

Granny Keeny glared at him now, every furrow and line etched across her hardened face aflame with anger, and in that moment she was everything Crane had ever hated in a life full of hate—the laughter of bullies as a library book was ripped from his grasp and stomped beneath their feet with glee, the burst of red pain as a fist met his nose with a wet crunch, the tender patch on his scalp where his hair was torn from the root and the stains of schoolyard dirt on his shirt, the constant fear of being discovered with every turn of a page as he read beneath his bed blankets, the bland taste of the thin vegetable broth he ate for dinner nearly every night, the feeling of his great-grandmother's bony fingers digging into the flesh of his arm as she dragged him to the aviary for yet another night of punishment, the sound of his fists pounding uselessly on the bolted chapel door, the foul stench of the potion-smeared suit burning in his nostrils as he wept and pleaded for mercy that he knew would never come, the crows watching hungrily from the rafters and the beat of their wings and their beaks on his skin and his hands shielding his eyes and the blood the blood  _the blood_ —

"I'm sorry, Granny," Crane whispered, his voice quivering. "Do I have to dress for church?"

She tormented him with a long pause before answering.

"No. I don't believe that will be necessary."

Any sense of relief came to a grinding halt when Crane saw the smirk on her lips.

"After all, one needn't go to church to pray," Granny Keeny remarked, and pointed down towards the ground.

Without resistance he sank to his knees in the dirt, laced together the fingers of each hand, closed his eyes, and began to recite the verses she had taught him—had  _instilled_ into him—throughout the years of his existence. A few minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen, and nearly an hour later Crane's tongue had begun to tire and his throat ached and his voice felt the strain of every word. Still, he had escaped the feathers, and for that he would utter every invocation he knew.

After what felt like an eternity Granny Keeny grew either satisfied or bored.

"That's enough, boy. Be quiet. You're starting to give me a headache."

But when Crane opened his eyes and began to rise she shot him a withering look that made him freeze instantly.

"I said you could quit praying with your mouth. That sin-soaked mind of yours still has plenty left to do." With visible arthritic effort she stood from the chair and tucked her Bible beneath the crook of her arm. "You stay right where you are. I'll come and get you when I've decided that you're done."

And with that declaration the old woman left Crane behind to fester in the soil, hard clods digging into his knees and the sun flaying his back raw. But he remained still and obedient, head bowed and arms stiff and eyes tightly shut, for he knew that if Granny Keeny were to catch him being anything less than defeatedly compliant then the crows would have him for an indefinite companion. He was aware of time passing, of the hot remains of the day fading into the thick humid night and the nocturnal Georgia wildlife skittering about the manor grounds and the increasingly-difficult battle for his exhausted body to stay awake. Not even when a summer shower began to pour upon him did Crane dare move; the rain pelted him without mercy, bitingly cold in spite of the warm climate, and when Granny Keeny finally arrived the next morning to end his punishment his clothes and hair were still damp.

He had adhered to her instructions, all but one: his thoughts were not of prayer.

His thoughts were of revenge.

* * *

Later that week, on a dull afternoon when Granny Keeny had retired to her room for her daily nap and more summer rain fell upon the manor to leak through gaps in its decaying roof and land in puddles inside strategically-placed brass pots, Crane found himself standing before a door in Keeny Manor's second story corridor. Behind it was a room forbidden to him and a source of unending curiosity—he did not know  _what_  was in the room, only that Granny Keeny had expressly forbade him from ever laying eyes upon it under threat of an entire week in the aviary.

Terrified by the prospect, for years Crane had avoided even walking down the room's hallway, fearful that so much as catching a glimpse of the door would incur her wrath; but his desire to know whatever prohibited mystery the room contained had never waned, and he explored it often in his imagination. As a small boy he had envisioned massive wooden chests brimming with treasure, gold coins and majestic crowns and pearls the size of his fist and jewels so alluring that one could get lost staring into their richly-colored depths. His fantasies became only more vivid as he grew into his youth; perhaps the room was host to a collection of bizarre objects like the ones he had read about in horror stories—chairs made from entire human skeletons, an assortment of brains floating inside jars, strange taxidermied creatures, portraits of men with grotesque visages, mounted heads, dolls made with human hair that continued to grow, cursed artifacts that brought doom to anyone foolish enough to procure them. But his favorite daydream was that the room contained a secret stash of money, enough to get him far away from Arlen and his loathsome great-grandmother and their crumbling home. Enough to build him a new life. Enough to make him  _happy_.

Slowly, carefully, Crane reached for the doorknob. He hesitated, his fingers hovering uneasily just above it, frightened that the slightest touch would set off the deafening blare of an alarm and reveal his treachery. Was whatever may lurk behind the door really worth risking seven days of suffering among the crows? Was it better to turn around, go back to his own bedroom, and be content with not knowing? Perhaps the room was empty and Granny Keeny's warnings had been nothing but a lengthy manipulation designed test him—he would open the door and somehow,  _somehow_  she would be there waiting for him, her eyes burning like fire in the darkness and her claw-like hands outstretched to drag Crane into the Hell she had crafted for him in the chapel.

He took a step backwards, frightened by the image. It was better to be safe.

It was better to be a coward.

Before he could stop himself Crane's hands were turning the doorknob and swinging the door open. He realized now that the room had never actually been locked—it was only his fear that had kept him out.

As he stepped inside, his heart pounding thunderously in his chest, Crane's eyes widened as he took in the sight of what he had been denied. He had dreamed of this moment for years, and still it managed to be more breathtaking, more awe-inspiring, more  _perfect_ than he had dared to imagine. The room contained no money, but something immeasurably more valuable to a boy like Crane.

_Knowledge._

Rows and rows of books coated in a thick layer of dust stood before Crane, so many that the cobweb-laden shelves nearly reached the ceiling. He was never told that Keeny Manor held a library, and now that he had discovered it he knew his life had just changed forever—he would learn everything that he could possibly cram into his mind, he would calculate and construct his careful plans, and then he would wait for the opportunity to strike at all who had ever harmed him. There were many.

His plucked a book from a shelf, delicately tracing a finger across the title printed along its spine:  _Advanced Chemistry._

Crane smiled and began to read.

* * *

_"Faith is a bird which loves to perch on scarecrows."_

—an unknown pastor


	4. In the Orchard

**IN THE ORCHARD**

NOLANVERSE

* * *

_Spring._

* * *

It is springtime in Georgia, and Jonathan Crane is both tranquil and warm. He sits beneath the protective shade of a peach tree, his suit jacket folded neatly at his side and his tie loosened; the sleeves of the shirt that he had meticulously ironed earlier that morning are now rolled up to his elbows, the top buttons undone to expose his pale throat. A book lies open in his lap, its pages fluttering in the breeze; already he has forgotten what he was reading. The wind brings with it the fresh scent of blossoms and plants a light, cool kiss against his cheek.  _Never leave,_ the orchard begs, and tears prick at his eyes.

_Never _,__ he promises.

Crane brings a peach to his mouth, eyes closed to savor the firm velvet skin pressed against his lips before his teeth pierce the fruit's yellow flesh. A wet taste hits his tongue, both sour and sweet, and he cannot recall the last time he has ever felt this happy.

_Forever,_ he promises.

His eyes open to meet a cloud of green mist, thick and impenetrable. Rain droplets that he cannot see soak his clothing and wet his hair, sending a deep chill throughout his body and goosebumps prickling across his skin. A scratching sensation fills his throat and he begins to cough, his breathing spiraling into jagged rasps before he realizes that he is choking. Something is stuck in his throat, constricting his airway—panic sends his heart racing, his lungs screaming for air—

Crane leans forward and retches, and a large beetle spills from his mouth and onto the ground. He stares at the insect, horrified beyond shock, and retches again; a cluster of worms join the beetle, writhing among the bile and filth. He digs his fingernails into the soil, his stomach lurching with revulsion and betrayed sobbing. In the haze he can barely see the peach rotting in his hand, leather-black and wilted with mold; he squeezes it in rage, putrid syrup oozing through his fingers and down his wrist.

The toxin. It was always the toxin.

_Stay _,__ begs the orchard.

He has no choice.


	5. Fire at Will

**FIRE AT WILL**

NOLANVERSE

* * *

_"You want my opinion? You need to lighten up."_

* * *

It had all happened in a matter of seconds—the heady scent of gasoline, the bottle of liquor in hands that moved so quickly they barely felt like his own, the casual flick of a lighter (an impersonal gift from years ago; he didn't even  _smoke_ ) and the sudden rush of heat as flame met flesh and fiber. Adrenaline had carried him down rickety flights of stairs, out through the derelict building's doors—by now Crane was clutching his car keys so tightly that they felt embedded into his skin—and into the nearby alleyway where he had parked only minutes before setting fire to Gotham's new self-appointed hero and greatest fool, and watched him burn brightly through his beloved city's night sky.

_Lighten up_ , he had said, and The Bat had done just that.

The act had been as absurd as it was exhilarating, and in the safety of his car—palms slick with sweat on the steering wheel, heart thumping wildly in his chest, his foot heavy on the gas-pedal and The Narrows miles away—Crane could not stop the corners of his mouth from turning upwards into an unnerving grin, wide with teeth and a grotesque sense of victory; had a passenger seen his expression, they would have doubtlessly felt the sudden mad urge to fling themselves from the vehicle out of sheer instinctive fright. With macabre curiosity Crane wondered what sound a bat makes when it screams, and regretted that his own Bat had not before plunging fierily from the window. He would have liked to hear it.

Absent-minded fingertips felt burlap rather than flesh when he attempted to wipe the sweat from his brow, and a glimpse in the rear-view mirror revealed that Crane had forgotten to remove his mask. Again. That particular lapse in memory had been occurring more and more often, but he found that he no longer cared.

Crane continued the rest of his drive untroubled, and that night he slept well.

* * *

_In what distant deeps or skies._

_Burnt the fire of thine eyes?_

_On what wings dare he aspire?_

_What the hand, dare seize the fire?_

—William Blake, "The Tyger"


	6. Group Therapy

**GROUP THERAPY**

DINIVERSE

* * *

_Dr. Crane presides over group therapy at Arkham Asylum, with catastrophic results._

* * *

"Alright everybody, quiet, please— _quiet_ —now, let's begin..."

Group therapy at Arkham Asylum was by no means a simple, uneventful affair. The hour-long sessions required no less than ten guards, each one equipped with an electric baton and a canister of mace, and covered head to toe in riot gear. No sharp objects were allowed in the room—no pencils, no pens. Crayons had previously been approved for use in art therapy, but after Joker drove a waxy stick of Tickle Me Pink into a therapist's eye the privilege had been revoked.

Finger-painting had been the next logical step and had lasted for precisely two sessions before Joker—who else—began to paint obscene drawings of Batman onto the walls with his fingertips, depicting the Dark Knight's demise in a variety of imaginative and colorful ways. The therapist at the time had encouraged this behavior, assuring the guards that the act was not one of defiance, but of expression and an eagerness to work through very complex and very hurt feelings. Joker had turned his bottom lip downwards into an innocent pout, solemnly nodding along as the therapist prattled on and on about creating a nurturing environment full of acceptance and caring and if that meant a little paint on the walls, so be it.

He'd been so caught up in his spiel that he barely had time to react before Joker grabbed him by his hair, jerked his head backwards, and poured a cup of blue paint down his throat. Harley Quinn had thought that was a real hoot, and jumped up and down enthusiastically as the man sputtered beneath his blue liquid mask; she was then struck with the idea to celebrate by scooping up a handful of paint and flinging it towards a guard rushing to the therapist's aid, hitting him square in the face and causing him to stumble head-first onto the floor. The guard suffered a concussion, the therapist never stepped foot in Arkham again, and art therapy was banned.

Now Joker only attended individual therapy sessions, and always in a straitjacket, but it was still quite some time before the warden was able to find a therapist willing to preside over a group setting, and the self-suggested candidate was a rather... _unorthodox_ choice.

Dr. Jonathan Crane had approached the warden with his offer to administrate group therapy sessions on several occasions, and each time the warden had declined. True, Crane was a highly-gifted, experienced psychiatrist and more than qualified for the position—unfortunately, he had also been imprisoned in Arkham for the past two years. But the warden was getting desperate—asylum regulations mandated a certain amount of group therapy hours per patient—and with no other potential candidate in sight, he had little choice but to appoint Crane. At best, it could be considered a progressive form of rehabilitation; at worst, an unprecedented disaster.

"Good afternoon," Crane began, sitting in his chair with much pride and dignity (never mind that he was still wearing his handcuffs), "today I thought we'd discuss a common source of adversity in our lives, and how we can overcome that obstacle in order to become healthier individuals." He smirked. "Now, does anyone know who or what I may be referring to? Raise your hands to answer, please."

Instantly several hands shot into the air; Crane tapped a finger against his chin in a gesture of exaggerated contemplation before pointing towards The Ventriloquist. "Arnold, why don't you tell us?"

"M-me?" The timid man gulped. "Well—"

"Hey, I was da one with my hand in da air!" The nasal voice of Scarface interrupted Wesker, who visibly recoiled from the puppet in his lap. It was true—the dummy's stubby, wooden arm  _had_ been pointed upwards—but Crane had purposefully selected Wesker, knowing it would cause strife between the man's personalities.

"I think we should give Mr. Wesker the chance to speak, Scarface," Crane said reproachfully. "Arnold, please continue. You're among friends."

Wesker tugged at his jumpsuit collar nervously. "P-perhaps you are referring to...to..."

" _Gatman_ , you moron! He's talking about  _Gatman_!" Scarface's hand swung towards Wesker's face, connecting with his glasses and sending them flying across the room.

"Gentleman,  _please_ ," Crane said, gleeful at the mayhem unfolding before him, "let's try to control ourselves. However, Mr. Scarface  _is_ correct—Batman is the common denominator I was referring to. Would anyone like to discuss how Batman makes them feel?" His eyes traveled across the room, assessing the patients for potential chaos.

"Miss Isley, would you like to share with us?"

Poison Ivy narrowed her eyes. "No, I would not," she replied icily. "What is there to say that hasn't been said already?"

Crane shrugged. "That's perfectly fine with me, Miss Isley—I just thought that perhaps you had some strong feelings regarding Batman's treatment of your poor,  _helpless_ plants during the events that led to your current incarceration here in Arkham."

Ivy bit her dark green lip in anger; she had been in the process of robbing a charity ball, enjoying the sight of Gotham's rich and famous dangling precariously from large, slithering vines when Batman arrived and sprayed her precious, innocent babies with industrial-strength weed killer.

Crane smiled as Ivy seethed, her green-tinged skin flushing a darker shade with rage. "Another time, then," he said gently. He turned to survey the room again; he'd set the beginnings of his trap, and all it would take was a couple more steps to spring it.

And speaking of twos...

"Mr. Dent, I believe we would all be very interested in hearing your thoughts."

Two-Face flipped his coin through the air before catching it and slapping it against the back of his heavily-scarred hand. Evidently, the coin spoke in Crane's favor; Two-Face straightened in his chair before glaring at Crane with an appraising stare and asking "what do you wanna know, Doc?".

"Whatever you're comfortable sharing with us, Harvey," Crane said innocently. "We could discuss the many times Batman has foiled your hard work and brought you to Arkham, or we could discuss his rather annoying propensity for predicting your plans due to your fondness of the number two, or..." Crane snapped his fingers suddenly, as if a thought had just occurred to him. "I know! Let's talk about how he failed to shield you from the accident that resulted in your current, er,  _condition_."

Two-Face gritted his exposed teeth, anger etched into both sides of his face. He gripped the sides of his chair so hard that the metal began to bend and fold underneath his hands, and Crane knew that he had hit a nerve. "I'm so sorry Harvey, I had no idea that was such a sore subject for you," Crane said with false, exaggerated concern. "Will you ever forgive me?"

Before Dent could reply he had turned away to search for his next subject.  _Just one more spark_ , he thought,  _and the whole place will ignite_.

_Eeny, meeny, miny...mo!_

"Miss Quinn! I'm particularly interested in your thoughts, given your... _impressive_ background in psychiatry."

Harley rolled her eyes. "Eh, I gave that up years ago, Jonny, and you should too! That stuff is so  _boring _.__ " She spoke the last word with obvious disdain, as if the very taste of it in her mouth disgusted her.

"Fair enough, Harley—may I call you Harley?"

She shrugged noncommittally, clearly uninterested in the conversation.

"Well, Harley, why don't you tell me what you think about Batman? After all, when I learned what he did to our good friend Mr. Joker the last time he brought him here I was absolutely horrified, and I can only _imagine_ how you—"

"What was that?" Harley's voice was flat, completely devoid of her usual bubbly edge.

"Oh, you mean you don't know?" Crane brought a hand to his chest, as if scandalized. "Oh, that's right, the warden has been keeping you two separate—a most unwise decision, if you ask me, although I suppose I shouldn't speak poorly of my employer—"

"What's wrong with Mistah J?"

"Well, I certainly don't want to upset you...perhaps it's best if we move on to another—"

" _Spit it out, Scarecrow!_ " Harley's blue eyes were wide and crazed, her hands balled into angry fists and her chin wet with spittle. Out of the corner of his eye Crane could see the inmates seated next to her begin to slowly scoot their chairs away, fearful of her next move.

"Well, if you insist—it seems that Batman was unnecessarily brutish with poor Joker; I overhead some of the attendees say that he broke his nose, one of his ribs,  _and_ knocked out  _three_  teeth." Crane clucked his tongue disapprovingly. "Shame, and he had  _such_ a wonderful smile..."

He hung his head sadly and brought a hand to his mouth to disguise the smile that threatened to creep across his lips; when he trusted himself not to laugh, he looked back up at Harley. Her face was contorted with rage, her teeth gnashing, and a small trickle of blood flowed down each of her wrists from where her nails had pierced the skin of her palms.

"Last I heard, he was still in the infirmary ward," Crane offered politely.

It was the exact push Harley needed to make her fly from her seat and bolt towards the door, her handcuffs rattling frantically as she ran. A guard dove towards her, but she evaded him with a quick jump; he crashed onto the floor, knocking over a few chairs and their occupants. Another guard had more success with an electric baton, prodding her in the leg and causing her to yelp in pain before falling into a crumpled heap.

"Stupid beast!" Ivy yelled angrily, jumping onto the offending guard's back and wrapping her cuffs around his neck. One of his partners struggled to restrain the green woman as she roughly dug the chains into the guard's throat, twisting as his face reddened. Unable to separate her from the man's back, he was forced to spray her with mace; unfortunately, this resulted in her victim also inhaling a cloud of the gas, and he gasped as tears streamed down his face. The spray had little to no effect on Ivy, who turned her attention toward the now-trembling guard clutching the mace canister.

"Ladies,  _please_ ," Crane protested halfheartedly, enormously pleased with his results.

A swift kick from Ivy sent a guard flying into Two-Face, who responded by pummeling his fist into the hapless man's face. A fine spray of blood decorated the front of Dent's orange Arkham jumpsuit, and Crane wondered absentmindedly if he would continue to beat the guard or consult his coin first; regrettably, Dent was incapacitated by an electric baton before Crane received the answer to his question.

The other inmates began to swarm the guards, as if spurred by the actions of their fellow patients; soon the room was filled with the melody of pain-ridden shrieks, the crunch of breaking bones, and the frantic voices of the guards as they shouted into their radios. Throughout the chaos Crane remained in his seat, covering his nose and mouth with his hands to shield himself from the mace gas permeating the room. He observed the pandemonium through watering eyes, barely able to make out the tiny figure of Scarface dancing through the air underneath Wesker's outstretched arm, nearly as ecstatic as he.

He briefly considered making a run for it. It was possible that he would be able to slip out of the room undetected—the security guards were otherwise preoccupied—and he might be able to grab a set of keys off a fallen guard's belt. Ultimately he decided against it, choosing instead to remain seated and bask in the bedlam he had caused. After all, he'd come to realize that Arkham  _did_ have its charms, however hidden they may be. Perhaps he'd stick around a little longer and see what other delights the asylum could offer him, and what  _he_ could offer  _it_.

And who knows—maybe he'd even get a chance to lead group therapy again.


	7. Beneath the Ground Where She Lies

**BENEATH THE GROUND WHERE SHE LIES**

COMICVERSE

* * *

_The past does not always stay buried._

* * *

Keeny Manor had changed little since Jonathan Crane had last laid eyes on her; there were more coats of grime, more shattered glass, more layers of rust and mold and decay, but it was still the same rotting farmhouse that he had granted a final glance of parting hatred before his blistered feet carried him to the bus stop in town and onto his new life in Gotham. For many years he had lived an existence devoid of cornfields and fresh air and crumbling red soil, even if Georgia still lingered within the soft accent that he tried so very hard to conceal and the scars on his hands wrought by endless hours of toil in the sweltering fields and the nights where he awoke with a start from nightmares that reeked of feathers. His world now consisted of concrete and traffic and  _freedom_ —glorious, intoxicating freedom from his former home and all the misery and pain that had seeped into her loathsome walls like poison.

But today Crane found himself standing in the manor's fields, a grown man in his childhood garden, surrounded by dead grass and clouds of thick fog and all the memories that he wished to forget. He had no explanation for why he had chosen to visit Keeny Manor after nearly two decades, no possible motive for wanting to return to a place that now served as little more than a mausoleum to a depleted family legacy that had been squandered long before Crane had ever drawn his first feeble breath; he could not remember traveling to Georgia and he could not remember having arrived, nor could he explain the growing sense of dread that writhed inside his stomach like a serpent and bathed his skin in cold sweat.

The shrill  _caw_ of a crow echoed throughout the garden, cacophonous and piercing as it rang about in his ears and set his pulse racing madly.

_Caw! Caw!_

Crane felt something graze across the toe of his shoe—a worn pair of loafers that he'd spent half a paycheck on years ago in a foolish, vain attempt to fit in with his colleagues (as if he ever could) and reignited a persistent feeling of shame every morning when he slid them onto his feet—and he instinctively jumped backwards, shaking his foot wildly in an effort to fling away the unseen source of his discomfort. Rural life had led Crane to encounter many a rodent and reptile during his youth, yet the thought of now crossing paths with vermin either furry or scaled made him shudder; he could still vividly recall one disgustingly hot summer day when he had been barefoot and nearly stepped on—

_No._

Crane watched in horror as a skeletal finger began to emerge from the dirt, stripped entirely of flesh and caked with soil. Already he knew who it belonged to.

_No. No!_

His mind screamed at him to run, to crush the foul thing beneath his foot, to do  _anything_ , anything to put distance between himself and the monstrosity clawing its way through the ground. But Crane could do nothing but remain rooted to the spot, his body paralyzed with fear and a trapped scream rattling in his throat, as more loathsome bone rose to reveal the decomposed remnants of a black dress and white hair still pinned back, neat as ever, into a tight bun across an eyeless skull.

_No no no no no—_

The putrid, inescapable stench of death filled his lungs, so thick and vile that he could taste it; when she began her hideous crawl towards him, fleshless and even more terrible than she had been in life, Crane desperately hoped— _prayed_ —that his heart would stop beating, and that he would die of pure fright before she reached him. The events of his last night at Keeny Manor were irreversibly seared into his memory: the sharp pain of her fingernails blindly tearing at his arms and neck as he pressed an embroidered pillow onto her face with all the strength he could summon, the muffled sound of her final ragged gasp before her struggling faded away into a defeated stillness and her skin grew as cold as ice, the way her glassy eyes shimmered in the moonlight as Crane shoveled dirt onto her body until all that remained of his great-grandmother was a disturbed patch of soil in the manor's chapel—they were all the price he had to pay for his freedom, and he had done so without remorse. But now she had come to punish him for his treachery, and he knew that he would not be permitted to escape a second time.

Even in death, she had won.

" _Welcome home, Jonathan,_ " Granny Keeny rasped into Crane's ear, clods of filth and worms spilling from her mouth onto his shoulders as she drew him into her horrible embrace. The air filled with the frenzied beating of crow wings while a thousand beaks tore at his flesh, and only then did the toxin finally allow him to scream.


	8. Buyer Beware

**BUYER BEWARE**

NOLANVERSE

* * *

_Exercise caution when purchasing from Scarecrow._

* * *

Dr. Jonathan Crane overlooked Gotham from the top floor of a parking garage. In spite of the night's smog the city shone brightly, a splash of colorful neon lights scattered throughout in the darkness, and he could not help but wonder what it would look like on fire.

"Do you have it?" a voice beside him asked—no,  _demanded_ —in a clipped, irritated tone.

Crane turned to face a man with sunken cheeks and a waxen pallor, his shoulders hunched and his lips twisted into an impatient scowl; for all the bravado his voice had held, there was no disguising the feverish desperation that seeped freely from him in an uncontrollable gush and tainted his every move. The quiet jittery sound of his foot tapping edgily upon the concrete, the visible nausea rotting in his gut and threatening to burst its way free through his dried lips, the tired sway of his posture earned from a sleepless night spent deep in the throes of withdrawals, the damp stain of sweat that splayed wetly across his chest and caused his shirt to cling to his skin like flypaper—they had all betrayed their keeper and left him vulnerable to Crane's trained eye. He was an ailing wanderer searching for relief in the form of synthetics, and whispers in The Narrows proclaimed the doctor that lurked within the shadows to be the preeminent maestro of chemicals. And so there stood the man, and there stood Crane, and a deal was to be made.

"Hey," the man pressed, the assertiveness in his weakening voice now beginning to ebb away into a command as anemic as his pallid complexion, "do you have it or not?"

Crane smiled.

"Of course," he replied smoothly, and reached inside his jacket to retrieve a small plastic bag full of bone-white powder. The man immediately reached forward and Crane saw a quick succession of emotions flicker in his eyes: a relentless anguish that tore at both his body and his mind without mercy, a hope that his misery would soon end—even if only for a few hours—and be replaced by a warm bloom of euphoria, a morose sense of shame that ultimately failed to overpower his slavish yearning for chemicals, and—most powerfully of all—an all-consuming desire for the finely-ground compound now within mere inches of his hungered grasp.

" _Tsk, tsk_ ," Crane admonished with a smirk, pulling his hand back and out of the man's reach. "That's not how this works."

The man's face darkened, but he obliged by quickly reaching into his pocket and shoving a wad of crumpled bills onto Crane's open palm. "It's all there. All of it. I don't rip people off."

"I'm sure," Crane said evenly, and without skipping a beat the man snatched the bag from his grip and began to fumble at the seal with frantic, shaking hands. Crane smoothed the creases out of the cash and began to flip through it, lips moving silently as he counted, and when he was content that he had not been cheated he neatly folded the money into his jacket pocket and looked up to see the man wiping his nose.

"Satisfactory?" Crane asked, but the man gave no indication that he had heard the query; confusion sank into every feature of his sallow face, from the clouds of sickly yellow in his sclera to the sharp curve of his cheekbones, and he blinked in rapid succession as if struggling to comprehend an astounding sight. "I believe you'll find my product to be somewhat unique," Crane continued, undeterred by his lack of an attentive audience, "I would even be so bold as to suggest that you've never experienced anything quite like it."

The man stumbled backwards and nearly tripped over his own feet as he lifted trembling hands to cover his eyes in an attempt to shield himself from whatever invisible horrors had seized hold of him. It was a futile gesture, for Crane's toxin could conjure the most fearsome of images even in the absence of eyes, and with a wail of defeat the man fell to his knees and bore witness to the infernal nightmare his mind had chosen for him. He writhed and contorted and pleaded and begged and left behind a bloody trail when he dragged his fingernails along the concrete, but there would be no respite, no rescue, no savior's hand to reach down and pull him free from his living hell; there lied the man, and there stood Crane, and a deal had been made.

It had been remarkably— _laughably_ —simple to find subjects to test the evolving form of his toxin on, even in spite of Crane's newfound notoriety; all it had taken was an alteration of his formula to induce pleasure rather than fear and enough euphoria-craving clients to spread word of his new miracle, and in time Crane was sought out by those eager to experience chemical paradise for themselves. What did it matter that he had once poisoned their city, now that he had created something beautiful? They flocked to him, and in time he reintroduced them to fear; little by little he began to switch the pleasure compound with his toxin, allowing him to resume the experiments he had been forced to abandon when he fled Arkham Asylum.

When the man crumpled on the concrete had served his purpose and his screams had faded to a dying rattle, Crane made his final observations before heading to the elevator. The subject often expired or ended up hospitalized and crazed, but what did it matter? He had created something  _truly_ beautiful.

_Buyer beware_ , he mused to himself, and prepared for his next customer.

* * *

_Two more emergency rooms will close at the end of the summer, according to Department of Health spokesperson Lorraine Brandeis-Fiegl. These closings - St. Bartholomew and Brockton General - bring the total number of closed emergency rooms to six in the past two years. The cuts in service come at a time when Fear Toxin cases are rising again, said Brandeis-Fiegl. Fear Toxin cases have particularly increased in the drug-addict population, and researchers are looking for the cause._

—"Emergency Rooms Close as Fear Toxin Cases Rise",  _The Gotham Times_


	9. The First Halloween

**THE FIRST HALLOWEEN**

NOLANVERSE

* * *

_Jonathan Crane celebrates Halloween for the first time._

* * *

Ever since he was a small boy, young Jonathan Crane held a deep fascination for All Hallows' Eve. His great-grandmother Mary Keeny—whom he called "Granny Keeny", a title she had chosen without an ounce of affection—vehemently forbade all celebration of Halloween, citing her religious beliefs and precious piety as reason for her impassioned condemnation of the festivities. Mary's annual spiel regarding the "Devil's Holiday" was surely one of her favorites, for every year she relished in zealously describing the damnation of those in town who adorned themselves in fiendish costumes to frolic the night away and leave behind a path of destruction, but Crane suspected her disapproval stemmed more from her strong dislike of anything that brought other people joy. She was a miserable, sadistic crone of a woman, as cold as she was cruel, and he found it nigh impossible to imagine her feeling even the most feeble spark of happiness unless it was at the expense of another; indeed, the only occasions where he ever saw her her display any emotion beyond bitterness or anger was when she boasted of the hellish fate awaiting those less devout than her or when she was dragging Crane to the chapel with a grip that felt like ice. The mere utterance of the word "Halloween" was met with a chilling glare of warning, but this did little to quell his curiosity—if anything, the delicious thought of defying Granny Keeny and her puritanical views only fueled his interest.

At night Crane would lie awake for hours, waiting with bated breath for the sound of arthritic footsteps heading towards his great-grandmother's room; when he was confident that she was finally asleep, he carefully lifted the loose floorboard beneath his bed to retrieve his two most prized possessions: a flashlight (purchased at the local dime store with loose change he had little-by-little pocketed from Granny Keeny's purse) and a thick, leather-bound volume of collected horror stories. The only book Granny Keeny ever allowed him to read was The Holy Bible, but he managed to make regular excursions into Keeny Manor's library during her afternoon naps; she did not know that he had discovered what lied behind the door of the forbidden room, and he took great care to ensure that his ventures remained undetected. The horror collection was by far his favorite volume in the entire library and the only book that Crane did not return to its shelf after reading, choosing to instead stow it away in his room where he could savor each story again and again from beneath his quilted blankets with the aid of the flashlight. Every night his mind spun dizzily with images of fantastical, wondrously-macabre delights as he devoured page after page of haunted houses inhabited by wailing ghosts, restless spirits doomed to wander for all eternity, and tales of witchcraft so hideous that they sent a chill slithering down his spine every time he read them. He even began to catch himself daydreaming about his ghoulish companions as he toiled away in the manor's cornfields, the unrelenting sun beating down hotly upon his back and his sweat-drenched clothes clinging to his aching body like a second skin, while Granny Keeny watched from the comfort of her chair, shielded from the worst of the heat by an umbrella and a cold glass of iced tea grasped in her bony hand.

Of particular enchantment to Crane was the act of trick-or-treating. Not once in his life had he ever been permitted to have candy, nor cake or pudding or pastry, or any other sort of sweet desserts, for in Mary's eyes to indulge in even in the most occasional of treats was to commit the terrible sin of gluttony. The idea of possessing an entire bag for himself made his mouth water; true, he had no way of knowing what sugary confections  _actually_  tasted like, but he imagined the flavors were heavenly—or at the very least more pleasurable than the tough, sinewy stew meat and limp, bland vegetables that comprised his unappetizing supper every night. He had long ago given up on the futility of begging Granny Keeny for permission to trick-or-treat with the rest of their small town's children; the last time he had been rewarded with a night among the crows in the chapel. "Punishment for a defiant attitude," had been her reasoning, spoken coolly as Crane pounded his fists helplessly against the locked wooden door and his eyes welled up with tears. She insisted that her methods were meant to teach him how to be a good, devout man, and—most importantly—how to better serve their Lord. But even at his young age, Crane knew better; it was simply an excuse to lash out at him, to punish him for perceived sins carried out by others who, unlike Crane, were no longer within her reach and therefore free from her wrath. Every tyrant needed a whipping boy, and the resentful, callous, easily-angered Granny Keeny was no exception.

Yet over time Crane became more and more privately rebellious—the discovery of the manor's library had given him confidence for the very first time in his life, and he felt almost boisterous in his newfound determination to defy his withering oppressor. During prayers his mind would wander among the shelves, pondering which book he would read next as his tongue emptily recited verses. When working in the fields he would scrawl recently-learned vocabulary and equations into the dirt with a pointed stick, wiping them away with his foot when his chores were complete. As he sat across the table from Granny Keeny he would think of the wonderful, forbidden, seemingly-limitless knowledge that he was secretly accumulating, and sometimes he would have to shovel spoonfuls of stew into his mouth to keep himself from grinning. These small victories led to him gaining a certain degree of courage, and the year that he turned twelve he decided that he had finally grown tired of merely wondering what it would be like to go trick-or-treating. By the time that the month of October arrived Crane had resolved himself to at last participate in All Hallows' Eve, and as days slowly crawled by and the event inched ever closer the thrill of his upcoming rebellion became more and more consuming until he thought of little else; still, he was exceedingly careful to continue his usual routine of attending school and carrying out his tasks at Keeny Manor, and to act as if nothing were out of the ordinary, for if he were to even slightly betray his inner thoughts and invoke her suspicious nature Granny Keeny would not hesitate to lock him away with the crows and leave him to suffer their violence.

Weeks—though they felt more like an eternity—passed, and finally it was Halloween night.

Crane sat in his room, his stomach a lurching tangle of nervousness and frenzied excitement, and waited for the crone to retire to her bed. As he pressed his ear to the wall, his breath caught in his throat and his heart pounding so thunderously that he feared she would hear it, he could not help but envision scenarios in which she had learned of his intentions and subjected him to a punishment that made his past suffering look like paradise. Perhaps it was better to stay at home and not risk finding himself begging for mercy, for she would have none. Was such a frivolous act as trick-or-treating really worth the sickening terror of being led to the chapel by his bruised arm, the horrible stench of the herbal and rat blood concoction burning in his nostrils, the agony of his flesh being plucked at by greedy beaks and unforgiving talons?

He thought back to past years where he overheard his classmates discuss their Halloween ventures, their costumes and their candy and their carefree-fun, and the overwhelming, bile-tasting envy he had felt, for he had experienced none of it. He thought of the story book concealed beneath the floor and the unfairness of being forced to hide the only true companions he had ever had: the characters that resided in the pages of fiction. He thought of all that he had been robbed of in life, of the crushing, smothering bitterness that tore at his heart piece-by-piece and left him hollow.

Crane wanted so badly to be like the other children, to have all that they had. To be content. To be  _happy_. And for one night, he could be; he could walk among them and smile and laugh and, for the first time in his life, know what it was like to feel joy that existed outside of a book. For one night, Crane could be  _normal_.

He looked out the window, into the dark abyss of the cornfields, and made his choice.

* * *

When the sound of Granny Keeny's frail snoring began to drift down the hall Crane plucked his pillowcase from his bed and folded it into his pocket, took a deep, calming breath of finality, and climbed out of his window. Keeny Manor had been decayed beyond repair since before Crane was born and had only rotted into an even more dire state of ruin throughout the following years, and he half-expected the piping to collapse beneath his feet as he began his slow, careful descent. He did not dare look down as he climbed for fear that even the most fleeting of glimpses would be enough to make him lose his nerve, or cause him to fall and become injured and—even worse—rouse Granny Keeny, who would have no sympathy for his pain; he imagined himself harvesting crops with a mangled arm or leg, broken and contorted into unnatural angles and bone jutting through his flesh, and gripped the piping so tightly that his knuckles blanched.

When he finally reached the bottom and lowered himself onto the ground, breathing a quiet sigh of relief the second his feet hit soil, Crane could scarcely believe what he had just accomplished. He had actually done it. He had freed himself from his prison, even if only temporarily. He had  _won._

Before he realized what he was doing Crane broke into a victorious run, eager to put as much distance as he could between himself and Granny Keeny and their wicked mausoleum of a home. As he ran along the dirt road that led to town, his path illuminated by the hazy glow of the moon, Crane felt as if he had spent the twelve years of his existence in the midst of a restless, nightmare-ridden slumber and had only just now awoken to view the world with open, fresh eyes; life before had been dismal and grim, but tonight was a new beginning. Tonight, there was hope.

His heart beat rapidly in his chest, not from dread or fear or even the exertion of the run, but from pure, absolute elation, the type he had only ever read about in books and had only ever dreamed of experiencing.

When his breathing became labored, panting gasps and he could no longer ignore the gnawing stitch in his side, Crane stopped to rest nearby one of the many corn fields that lined the road's path. Despite the cold, his cheeks bore a rosy pink flush and his unkempt hair clung to his forehead with sweat; still, his physical weariness paled in comparison to his excitement over the night's upcoming activities. He couldn't wait for his pillowcase to be filled to its brim with an assortment of candy and treats, to go door to door and be faced with welcoming, friendly smiles instead of the scornful frowns and sneers of disdain that he was accustomed to, to gaze in awe at the parade of costumes—

_Costumes _.__ Crane smacked a frustrated hand against his forehead, both angry with and disheartened by his glaring oversight. He had been so enraptured with fantasies of rebellion and sugar that he had neglected to somehow procure a costume; he could not afford to purchase so much as an eye mask from the menial selection offered at the town's only dime store, and were he able to sneak back into his room undetected his own wardrobe consisted of shabby, dull apparel that not even the most vivid of imaginations would be able to construct into a proper costume. Crane's sewing skills were limited to stitching patches onto his tattered clothes, and it hardly mattered now anyway—there was nowhere near enough time to create anything at this late hour. He supposed that he could participate without a costume, but even if the adults took pity on him and still provided him with candy despite his lack of traditional garb, there was no way that the other children would be as kind. They never were.

There would be giggles and finger-pointing, whispers of mockery spoken just loudly enough for him to hear every word, and if he was especially unfortunate—as he almost always was—one of his usual tormentors would spot him and do their absolute best to ruin his night.

No, if he didn't have a costume then there was no point in going any further.

He let out a weary sigh of defeat and stood up, dusting the dirt from the seat of his pants. If he turned around now, he would likely make it back home with plenty of time to spare before the sun rose and Granny Keeny awoke from her rattling slumber.

From the corner of his eye Crane caught a glimpse of burlap and straw peeking above wispy rows of corn. A sudden idea dawned on him, and he began to smile.

* * *

Within minutes of arriving into town, Crane spotted a group of several other costumed children gathered at the local park, plastic bright-orange buckets shaped to resemble jack-o'-lanterns clutched in their hands and the sound of their chattering laughter blending into a murmur that cut through the otherwise-quiet night. He immediately recognized two of his classmates, neither of whom he was pleased to see—the always-arrogant Bo Griggs, dressed as a pirate with a sword crafted from cardboard strapped to his side and a large eye-patch fastened across the face that so often scowled at Crane, and his ever-present girlfriend Sherry Squires, her curly dark hair piled atop her head in a painstakingly-immaculate updo and adorned with a tiara, the long skirt of her frothy pink dress hovering mere inches above the muddy ground. The pair often sought mean-spirited entertainment at Crane's expense, whether it be from a series of unrelenting punches delivered with brutish Bo's fists or a cruel taunt spilling from Sherry's venomous lips. Not wishing to be humiliated once again before an audience of his fellow classmates, Crane crouched behind a large oak tree and waited for the group to depart. He watched impatiently as the boys in the group passed around a bottle of what Crane suspected to be liquor, taking deep swigs and wiping their grinning mouths with the cuff of their shirt sleeves before handing it off to another; as he sat, Crane thought of how funny it would be if Bo were to become so inebriated that he tripped over the hem of Sherry's dress and soiled the pretty fabric before landing face-down in the mud, infuriating Sherry and embarrassing himself. The idea brought Crane a great deal of amusement, and he had to cup a hand over his mouth to contain his laughter before it burst free and gave away his hiding spot.

Time crawled by at a maddeningly-slow pace before the group finally grew bored of the park and began their journey towards the town's few neighborhoods. As Crane rose from the ground and straightened his cramped legs, it occurred to him that he was not entirely sure  _how_ to trick-or-treat; for all that he had read about the act in his beloved storybook, the social graces involved were still a mystery to him. He would have to follow the others and observe their movements—from a distance, of course. And so he pursued them with with all the stealth he could summon, huddling behind trash cans and vehicles as he studied the group's actions. He watched as they approached houses and knocked on their doors, gleefully chanting "trick-or-treat" when the home's occupant answered, smiles plastered across their faces as bowls of candy were tipped into their leering pumpkin buckets. Crane suddenly found himself quite conscious of the old pillowcase in his hands, aged yellow from decades of use and printed with an indistinct pattern that had almost faded away entirely, and he gripped the fabric tightly as a pang of jealousy stabbed at his chest.

He waited for the group to move onto the next street before he worked up the nerve to walk to a nearby house. He stood on a weathered, rather grimy welcome mat, the emblazoned words  _HOME SWEET HOME_  peeking through dirt-caked bootprints, and his heart pounding with such excitement and anxiety that he was certain it would alert the homeowner to his presence before he even had the chance to knock.

The moment he had yearned for, had risked  _everything_  for, had dreamed of over and over again in the lonely confines of his bedroom, was  _finally_  upon him—and now that it was here, Crane was unsure of how he felt about it.

Happy? Thrilled? Nervous?

Or just plain afraid?

_Don't be stupid,_ Crane scolded himself inwardly, ashamed of his own timidity.  _All these years of fear and pain and bullies and crows and an old woman's temper, and you're too scared to even knock on a door? She was right all along: you really **are**  disgusting._

He narrowed his eyes.

_No. No, I'm **not**._

Crane wiped the dark expression from his face, set his jaw in determination, and rapped his knuckles smartly against the door.

He had barely lowered his hand to his side when the door swung open to reveal a middle-aged woman, tall and slender, with a black witch's hat perched atop her shoulder-length blonde hair and an enormous glass bowl filled to the brim with candy cradled in her arms. She greeted him with a small gasp of surprise, as if startled by Crane's presence on her doorstep, before quickly regaining her composure and giving him a lopsided smile.

"That's certainly an... _interesting_ costume," she stated with awkward politeness, unable to entirely wipe the visible bewilderment from her expression, and Crane beamed with pride beneath his mask.

It had been an arduous task to retrieve the scarecrow's head from its post in the fields. The wooden cross was much taller than Crane, and he had received several splinters in the process. But the struggle had been rewarded when he lowered the burlap onto his face and fastened it around his neck with a piece of rope he stripped from the post; the fabric smelled rank with mildew from enduring countless rainstorms and the scraping texture made his skin itch, but Crane did not care—he  _loved_  his costume. His shabby, patch-ridden clothing paired exquisitely with the burlap, and for added effect he'd even stuck a few stray pieces of straw into his shirt collar and sleeves. For a reason that he couldn't quite name, Crane felt a strange sense of completion underneath his costume, as if he had unknowingly gone through life with a piece of himself missing and only just now found it; perhaps all this time the scarecrow had been patiently awaiting his arrival in the fields, lingering faithfully on its cross as it yearned for the moment where Crane would walk through the stalks and free its head from its straw shoulders and place it upon his own in a unity of burlap and flesh. He could not bear to return it to the lonely cross and decided that he would instead stow it away under the floorboard along with the rest of his hidden treasures, where in the darkness of his bedroom he could caress the the fabric and trace his fingers along the stitches and for once not feel as if he were utterly alone in a world that did not want him.

"Thank you," Crane replied excitedly, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.

The woman smiled again, this time with more warmth. "Would you like some candy?" she asked, and Crane's heart leapt.

"Yes, please! Oh, I mean, um, trick-or-treat!" He thrust his arms forward, his hands fumbling as he quickly opened his pillowcase. He watched with wide, ravenous eyes, silently willing his stomach to not growl, as the woman scooped a handful of candy into the linen pouch; he had eaten supper earlier that night (an insipid meal of thin soup and cornbread so dry it crumbled like sand) but the sight of the brightly-colored wrappers falling into the pillowcase made him feel suddenly famished.

"Thank you!" Crane exclaimed, hoping that his stomach would spare him the embarrassment of growling loudly with anticipation.

"You're welcome. Have fun and be safe.," the woman replied, and with a final smile of parting she closed the door.

The second that she was out of sight, Crane reached into the pillowcase and grabbed a piece of chocolate with such inelegant hastiness that it almost slipped through his fingers before hungrily tearing off the wrapper, lifting his mask, and popping the candy into his mouth.

The taste was beyond what he had imagined in even the most savory of his fantasies; he had not envisioned the satisfying crunch of the chocolate shell cracking between his teeth to spill a smooth, sugary flavor that swam along his tongue as he chewed, or the rich sweetness that lingered on his taste buds even after he had completely devoured the treat. Already eager to repeat the new experience, he plunged his hand into the pillowcase to seize another morsel, fingers fast as lighting as he ripped away the decorative cellophane. He followed the candy with another, and then another, and before he knew it all that remained was a small pile of empty wrappers gathered at the bottom of the pillowcase. Displeased with the sight, Crane turned on his heel and began to a brisk walk to the next house.

He wondered with amusement what his great-grandmother would think if she could see him wandering through town, his belly full of candy as he hunted for more; undoubtedly she would call him a swine, a sinner, a glutton who gulped down all that he could swallow and still burned with bottomless hunger. But if tonight was an exercise in overindulgence, Crane now understood why she had so fiercely espoused that particular sin: he  _liked_  it.

The second household was every bit as generous as the first, and so was the third; by the time Crane had made the neighborhood rounds, his pillowcase sagged heavily with treats and he was grinning from ear to ear beneath the burlap. He decided it was time to return home and search for a suitable hiding spot to squirrel away his candy (Crane would not dare bring so much as an empty wrapper into Keeny Manor) before slipping back into his bedroom. He considered tucking the pillowcase into the shrubbery near the manor grounds, but that incurred the risk of his sweets falling prey to sugar ants and other scavengers. Perhaps the tool shed would be a safer choice; after all, he was the one who tended to all the outdoor chores, and with Granny Keeny becoming more and more decrepit with each passing day she was unlikely to—

" _ _AHHHH!__ "

A high-pitched, terrified scream interrupted Crane's thoughts and he jumped in surprise, eyes darting frantically to find the frightened source. The only cries of horror he had ever heard before were his own. For a wild moment, he wondered if one of the ghoulish creatures from his storybook had somehow manifested into reality to unleash its fearsome nature upon Arlen. It was a preposterous, childish notion—but then again, tonight  _was_  Halloween...

"Monster! It's a monster!"

Crane turned to see a small boy, surely no older than three and clad in a white lamb costume, pointing an accusatory finger at him, his cherubic face streaked with tears.

"What are you talking about?" Crane demanded, privately embarrassed by his own disappointment at being denied a macabre scene.

"Monster!" The boy continued to point a chubby digit at Crane's head. His eyes were wide with the special sort of fear that can only be experienced during childhood, when the world is incomprehensible and the most extraordinary of things seem possible and there is nothing that lacks the potential to be frightening. With one hand he protectively gripped the handle of his jack-o'-lantern bucket, as if the garish orange pail brought him a sense of security, and with the other he wiped away tears and smeared the circle of black paint on his nose.

"Shouldn't you be with your parents?" Crane was now growing annoyed; he needed to hurry to the manor before Granny Keeny awoke, and he didn't even understand why the boy was so—

_The mask._

Of course! The revelation was so obvious that Crane felt almost stupid: the boy was scared of his mask. The sight of a scarecrow shambling about outside of his field—a weathered mass of fabric and straw and crooked stitches that had become a living creature and now lurked in the town's shadows, waiting to grab anyone who crossed his path and drag them away into the endless corn and to a terrible, unspeakable fate—had frightened the little lamb. Crane need only lift his mask to reveal himself as a flesh and blood normality rather than a monstrous fiend, assure the boy that no such horrors exist outside of a child's imagination, and the terror would end there.

But where was the fun in that?

Crane stepped towards the boy with all the menace he could muster, raised his arms above his head, and let out a raucous, ear-splitting roar. The cry was more shrill than he had intended—his voice was as slight as his body, a trait that was often the brunt of Bo and Sherry's mockery—and for a split-second he feared that he had succeeded only in making himself look like a fool.

His doubts were assuaged when the boy shrieked in fear, dropping his pail as he jumped backwards and spilling its contents onto the ground, shiny cellophane wrappers shimmering in the moonlight as they lay scattered at Crane's feet. The boy stumbled over his own tiny feet, clad in little black boots to resemble hooves, as he continued to back away from Crane with such terror that even the ears of his costume trembled in fright before he clumsily turned on his heel and fled as fast as his stout legs could carry him. His fluffy lamb tail bobbed behind him as he ran away into the night, a sight that made Crane double over in impish laughter.

Was this how Sherry and Bo felt every time they bullied him? Every time they chanted "Ichabod" as he walked by, every time they snickered at the state of his unkempt hair and crooked glasses, every time they flung a rock that struck his head, every time they laughed and pointed and basked in his pain-did it make them feel like  _this_? This satisfied, this proud?

This  _powerful?_

It occurred to Crane that the boy might return accompanied by his parents and their outrage, and he thought it best to take his leave. He quickly scooped handfuls of the abandoned candy into his pillowcase—were Crane not to have it, the ants surely would—and began his journey home.

As he walked along the dirt road, his pillowcase of treats swung over his shoulder, Crane wondered what awaited him. Perhaps his great-grandmother was waiting for him in his room, her withered mouth a thin line of anger and her bony hands clenched into fists, and perhaps each step he took brought him closer and closer to punishment. Even still, he had won—Crane had taken her zealot beliefs and her archaic rules and he had snuffed them out beneath his feet, relishing every spiteful, defiant moment. Not even a million nights with the crows could rob him of that victory.

Crane began to whistle as he walked, his spirits high and his belly full.

Happy Halloween, indeed.


	10. Silence

**SILENCE**

NOLANVERSE

* * *

_An incarcerated Crane reflects on his life._

* * *

I am standing in my cell at Arkham Asylum. I find it far too bright here; I wish to be kept in the basement, where I can submerge myself into the darkness and breathe in the damp smell of mold and feel the thick, palatable sense of fear that pulses through the air like electricity and feeds the heart of the asylum. Terror has always thrived in Arkham, long before I ever walked through her doors, and without it the asylum would perish—after all, what purpose does Arkham now serve but to lock away all those that Gotham finds scary, where they can weaken and rot and be forgotten? "Rehabilitation" and "treatment" are pleasant words, but also quite hollow; had they any real meaning in Arkham, I would have never been given the opportunity to create my toxin.

The confinements of my new home are meager: a toilet, a sink, and a small bed that consists of a thin mattress faded from years of bleach, a blockish wooden frame, and neither sheets nor pillows. The extent of my possessions are toiletries; I am not allowed the privilege of owning a book, magazine, or newspaper, or even a journal to document my thoughts. It has been months since I have slid my fingers lovingly down the frayed spine of a leather-bound novel, months since I have held paper in my hands, months since I have devoured so much as a single inked word. The deprivation pains me, and they know it—which means it will continue indefinitely.

Privacy is another luxury I am forbidden. I leave my cell only to attend therapy and to bathe; the guards watch as I stand underneath the shower head and attempt to rinse the cheap soap from my skin as quickly as possible, my teeth chattering in my skull from the cold water. Sometimes I think that I can hear them laughing, but I dare not turn to look—my already-staggering humiliation can take no further wounds. To them I was once Dr. Jonathan Crane, the well-respected psychiatrist who graced their palms with cash in exchange for their cooperation—a transaction they neglected to share with the GCPD—in my experiments, and now I am Patient #901829, just another man trapped within a cage and therefore of no further use to them. They consider my journey from an office to a cell to be a spiraling decline, an irrecoverable downfall, a hopeless collapse of fortune that would perhaps be considered tragic were it not of such great amusement to them.

But I consider it to be a rebirth.

I am not blind to my present situation. I can see that the guards do not respect me. I can see that my former colleagues are furious with me—not for my actions (I had taken strenuous care in ensuring that my excursions into the basement remained hidden to the other doctors, but had I been discovered I suspect that their concerns would have been for their own careers rather than the well-being of inmates), but because I made them look like fools. I've overheard the guards discussing how the news and tabloids mock them, questioning how an entire staff of seasoned psychiatrists failed to realize that they were working alongside the man now known as Scarecrow, the fiend who carried out countless unauthorized experiments and plotted to poison the entire city—all right beneath their trained, yet evidently unperceptive, noses. I've destroyed their illusion of brilliance on a public scale, and for that they will always find me abhorrent.

My therapy sessions consist of unapologetic prying. What was my childhood like? Was I ever abused? Did I love my parents, or do I blame them for how I turned out? Have I ever had a romantic partner? Have I ever killed anyone? What—and this is asked of me during every session, by far the most earnest of all their inquisitions—exactly happened that caused Jonathan Crane to become The Scarecrow?

But I answer only with silence.

They try to disguise the expression of thinly-veiled greed that accompanies each question, but their motivations are obvious: they'd love to be the one that makes a "breakthrough". They'd love to be the one that makes the big bad Scarecrow collapse into wracking sobs of guilt and regret as I confess to everything, and they'd love to pour each and every word into a tell-all book—adding their own embellishments when necessary, of course. I am the perceived criminal, but it is they who seek to profit from my crimes. To them I am an enormous stepping stone in their career, a best-seller aching to be published; they may hate me, but they can tolerate my presence for as long as it takes for me to be sufficiently exploited and for their wallets to grow fat.

They tell me that if I remain uncooperative, that if I refuse to exhibit any signs of improvement and refuse to speak, then my already non-existent privileges will continue to be restricted. I will continue to sit in my cell all day and all night, staring into the yellow grout between the bricks in the wall, and my only glimpse to the outside world will continue to be my walks to the showers and the interview rooms and the sliver of light as my meals are slid through the door.

If I start talking, perhaps they will allow me to use the asylum library, or even grant me permission to take a book back to my cell. Perhaps they will let me visit the inmate recreation room, and I can sit on a tattered couch that reeks of disinfectant and gaze into a television screen that blinks intermittently with fuzzy static. And if I'm  _really_  good, if I tell them what they  _really_  want to hear, then maybe,  _maybe_  they'll allow me supervised time outside, where I can shuffle about the fenced-in asylum grounds with my wrists and ankles cuffed while an armed guard with an itchy trigger finger keeps me in his crosshair.

They tell me that they just want to help me. They tell me that all I have to do is talk.

I've yet to say a word.

They think that leaving me alone in this cell is punishment. They are wrong.

I do not rot here. I flourish. This cell has become my sanctuary; here, I am free from the world and all of its trivial distractions, from the people I never liked and the society I never wanted to belong to, from everyday mundanities and migraine-inducing traffic and job responsibilities and appointments with patients that were agonizingly boresome and rent and bills and everything else that tried its damnedest to pry my focus away from my toxin. Here I can be alone with my thoughts, for the asylum cannot deprive me of something I hold most valuable: an abundance of time to think.

And I have so very much to think about.

For a while, I was content to remain in this cell. I endured the tyranny of the guards and their open jeering, for I knew they would soon never laugh again. I endured the intrusion and badly-camouflaged disdain flung at me by my avaricious former colleagues, for I knew both their egos and their minds would soon be shattered. I endured the deprivation, the spite, the dehumanization—I endured it all, and I made plans. Plans for procuring chemicals, for acquiring funds, for regaining all that I was robbed of after my arrest.

Plans for revenge.

The window on my cell door opens and I see the beady eyes and stern brow of a security guard.

"Up against the wall, Crane. Time to hit the showers. You know the procedure."

Almost everyone in Arkham can be bought, for the right price. The righteous few exceptions who refuse any offer are dealt with in other ways. This man is an exception.

The small glass vial of fear toxin is cool and smooth under my tongue.

I am standing in my cell at Arkham Asylum, and I am ready to leave now.


End file.
